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| Includes Issues: | Doc Savage 1-8 |
| Issue Dates: | October 1972 – January 1974 |
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| Creators: |
| Ernie Chua, Frank Giacoia, Frank Springer, Gardner Fox, George Roussos, Jack Abel, Jean Izzo, Jim Mooney, Jim Steranko, John Buscema, John Costanza,June Braverman, Kenneth Robeson/Lester Dent, Klaus Janson, Richard F. Buckler, Ross Andru, Roy Thomas,Steve Englehart, Tom Orzechowski, Tom Palmer Sr.,Tony Isabella |
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This review is spoiler free! Skip To The Verdict? »
THE ORIGINAL SUPERHERO.
It’s a weighty claim.
While
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze is missing some features that historians might argue would make him a full fledged superhero, he certainly was one of the earliest and most influential science adventurers.
The absolute
first superhero might be
Nyctalope, who debuted in french pulps in 1911. But not many have heard of that guy.
Doc On The Radio
OVERVIEW
Doc Savage is a pulp fiction hero created by publisher Henry W. Ralston and editor John L. Nanovic at Street and Smith Publications with additional material contributed by the series' main writer, Lester Dent.
The Doc Savage Magazine ran for 181 issues and was printed from March 1933 to the summer of 1949.
Doc Savage became known to modern readers when Bantam Books began reprinting the stories in 1964 with covers by artist James Bama and under the by-line "Kenneth Robeson". The stories were not reprinted in chronological order as originally published, though they did begin with the first adventure, The Man of Bronze. By 1967, Bantam was publishing one a month until 1990, when all 181 original stories (plus an unpublished novel, The Red Spider) had run their course.
Author Will Murray produced seven more Doc Savage novels for Bantam Books from Lester Dent's original outlines. Bantam also published a novel by Philip José Farmer, Escape From Loki (1991), which told the story of how Doc in World War I met the men who would become his five comrades.
The 86th floor
Doc's headquarters are on the 86th floor of a New York City skyscraper, implicitly the Empire State Building, reached by Doc's private high-speed elevator. Doc owns a fleet of cars, trucks, aircraft, and boats which he stores at a secret hangar on the Hudson River, under the name The Hidalgo Trading Company, which is linked to his office by a pneumatic-tube system nicknamed the "flea run." He sometimes retreats to his Fortress of Solitude in the Arctic — which pre-dates Superman's similar hideout of the same name. All of this is paid for with gold from a Central American mine given to him by the local descendants of the Mayans in the first Doc Savage story.
Who's Who
Clark "Doc" Savage, Jr. From an early age, Doc studied under great masters of all disciplines of science: medicine, chemistry, electricity, engineering, archaeology, and others. He also developed his body as well as his mind by studying the martial arts and other hand to hand combat skills. He became fluent in numerous languages, an expert at ventriloquism, and a marksman with all types of weapons.
When WWI broke out, Doc joined the Army and went overseas. He captured and sent to a POW camp where he met Monk, Ham, Renny, Johnny, and Long Tom. Doc and his crew organized a prison escape, and made a pact that they would form a group to fight evil and crime when the war was over.
An evil plot which killed his father spurred Doc and his crew into action for the first time. Doc saved a lost race of Mayan descendents from exploitation and slavery and in return was given access to the tremendous hordes of gold owned by the tribe. Doc used this fabulous wealth in his fight against evil.
Despite Doc's choice of professions, he seldom took the life of a criminal if he could help it. The fate of the criminals Doc captured was quite different. They were taken to a secret hospital in up-state New York and given a delicate brain surgery by Doc that erased their memories. A staff of attendants would then re-train the criminal to be a contributing member of society.
Doc was a huge man. Six foot eight inches tall, he weighed 270 pounds, he maintains his physique by performing two hours of exercises daily. These exercises consisted of pitting one muscle against another. At the same time, he is exercising his mind by performing complex mathematical calculations in his head. He also develops his other senses with the use of apparatus of his own design.
Brigadier General Theodore Marley "Ham" Brooks is a Harvard law school graduate and a sharp dresser. Ham carries a sword cane made of high tempered steel whose tip is coated with a drug of Monk's invention which produces instant unconsciousness. In his never-ending feud with Monk, Ham acquires a pet during one of his adventures with Doc, a gorilla-like simian which he names "Chemistry".
Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett "Monk" Mayfair Monk stands 5' 2" and 260 pounds, his is solid bone and muscle. His simian features are very pronounced: red hair as coarse as his pet pig Habeas Corpus covers most of his body, arms that stretch below the knees of his bowed legs, a forehead so low it doesn't look as if he has more than a spoonful of brains. .
Colonel John "Renny" Renwick is 6' 4" tall, 250 pounds of muscle and is an industrial, civil, and mechanical engineer by trade. His profession takes him to the far corners of the earth to design and build roads, air fields, skyscrapers, bridges, and hospitals. He misses many of Doc's adventures, especially in the later years, because of his work.
Major Thomas J. "Long Tom" Roberts is an electrical genius and a millionaire from all his electrical patents. Long Tom is undersized, about 5' 4" tall and 140 pounds, with a high forehead, large ears and a pale, sickly complexion. Despite this, he can more than hold his own in a scuffle and wears two gold front teeth from the many fights he has been in.
William Harper "Johnny" Littlejohn is an archaeologist and geologist. He is slightly over 6 feet tall and extremely thin. He's a sesquipedalian whose favorite exclamation is "I'll be superamalgamated!" Johnny wears a monocle over his sightless left eye which he uses as a magnifying glass in his profession. Doc later operates on his eye and restores his eyesight. In the later years, Johnny misses a lot of Doc's adventures because he is off somewhere on an archaeological dig.
Patricia Savage is Doc's cousin. Very attractive, tall and slender with bronze hair, she joins Doc and the crew in many of their adventures although Doc does his best to keep her from getting involved. She packs a single action six shooter revolver and is a crack shot. When not adventuring with Doc, she owns and maintains an upscale beauty salon in New York City.
Villains
Doc's greatest foe and the only enemy to appear in two of the original pulp stories, was the Russian-born John Sunlight, introduced in October 1938 in the Fortress of Solitude. Early villains in the series were fantastic schemers bent on ruling the world. Much later the magazine had a more realistic detective feel where Doc broke up crime rings.
No matter how fantastic the monster or menace, there was usually (but not always) a rational explanation at the end. A giant mountain-walking spider was revealed as a blimp, a scorching death came from super-charged electric batteries, a "sea angel" was a mechanical construct towed behind a submarine, Navy ships sunk by a mysterious compelling force were actually sabotaged, and so on. But Doc Savage also battled invisible killers, a murderous teleporter, and superscientific foes from the center of the Earth.
Lester Dent
Lester Dent, the series' principal author, had a mixed regard for his own creations. Though usually protective of his own work, he could be derisive of his pulp output. In interviews, he stated that he harbored no illusions of being a high-quality author of literature; for him, the Doc Savage series was simply a job, a way to earn a living by "churning out reams and reams of sellable crap", never dreaming how his series would catch on. Comics historian Jim Steranko revealed that Dent used a formula to write his Doc Savage stories, so that his heroes were continually, and methodically, getting in and out of trouble. Dent was paid $750 per story during the Great Depression, and was able to buy a yacht and vacation in the Caribbean.
Post Pulp Publication History
All of the original stories were reprinted in paperback by Bantam Books in the 1960s through 1990s. Of the first 67 paperback covers, 62 were painted in extraordinary monochromatic tones and super-realistic detail by James Bama, whose updated vision of Doc Savage with the exaggerated widow's peak captured, at least symbolically, the essence of the Doc Savage novels. The first 96 paperbacks reprinted one of the original novels per book. Actor and model Steve Holland who had played Flash Gordon in a 1953 television series was the model for Doc on all the covers. The next 15 paperbacks were "doubles," reprinting two novels each (these were actually shorter novellas written during paper shortages of World War II). The last of the original novels were reprinted in a numbered series of 13 "omnibus" volumes of four to five stories each. It was one of the few pulp series to be completely reprinted in paperback form.
The Red Spider was a Doc Savage novel written by Dent in April 1948, about the Cold War with the Soviet Union. The story was killed in 1948 by new editor Daisy Bacon, though previous editor William de Grouchy had commissioned it. It was forgotten until 1975, when Doc Savage scholar Will Murray found hints of its existence in the Street & Smith archives. After a two-year search, the carbon manuscript was located among Dent's papers. It finally saw print in July 1979 as Number 95 in Bantam's Doc Savage series.
When the original pulp stories were exhausted, Bantam Books hired Phillip Jose Farmer to pen the tale of how Doc and his men met in World War I. Escape from Loki was published in 1991. It was followed by seven traditional Doc Savage stories written by novelist Will Murray, working from unpublished Lester Dent outlines, beginning with Python Isle. Philip José Farmer had earlier written the book 'Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973), which described the characters and the stories on the entertaining premise that Doc actually existed and the novels chronicled his exploits in ‘fictionized’ form.
In 2011, Altus Press revived the series with another Murray-Dent posthumous collaboration, The Desert Demons. Eight new novels are planned for the new series The Wild Adventures of Doc Savage. In 2011, Doc Savage: Horror in Gold was published. In 2012 Altus Press published Doc Savage: Death's Dark Domain, Doc Savage: The Forgotten Realm, Doc Savage: The Infernal Buddha and Doc Savage: The Desert Demons. Doc Savage: Skull Island was released in 2013.
Sanctum Books, in association with Nostalgia Ventures, began a new series of Doc reprints (starting November 2006), featuring two novels per book, in magazine-sized paperbacks. Several editions came with a choice of the original pulp cover or the covers from the Bantam paperbacks, and most include the original interior artwork, as well as new essays and reprints of other old material. In late 2008, Nostalgia Ventures ended their relationship, and Sanctum Books continues with the reprints on their own.
Comic books
Golden Age
Street & Smith published comic book stories of Doc both in The Shadow comic and his own title. These started with Shadow Comics #1-3 (1940), then moved to Doc Savage Comics. Originally, these stories were based on the pulp version, but with Doc Savage Comics #5 (1941), he was turned into a genuine superhero when he crashed in Tibet and found a mystical gem in a hood. These stories had a Doc who bore little resemblance to the character in the pulps. This lasted through the end of Doc Savage Comics in 1943 after 20 issues, and briefly with his return to Shadow Comics in vol. 3, #10 (Jan. 1944). He would last until the final issue, vol. 9, #5 (1948), though did not appear in every one. He also appeared in Supersnipe Comics #9 (June 1943).
Modern Age
Post-Golden Age, there have been several Doc Savage comic books:
Gold Key Comics, 1966, one issue adaptation of The Thousand-Headed Man to tie into the planned movie starring Chuck Connors. Doc resembles Connors on the cover.
Marvel Comics. In 1972, eight standard color comics with four adaptations of books — The Man of Bronze, Brand of the Werewolf, Death in Silver, and The Monsters — and one giant-size issue of reprints that was promoted as a movie issue. In May 2010, DC Comics reprinted the eight-issue series as a trade paperback.In 1975, the Marvel imprint Curtis Magazines released eight black-and-white magazines as a movie tie-in. These were also collected by DC Comics and reprinted in July 2011 as a trade paperback. All are original stories by Doug Moench, John Buscema, and Tony DeZuniga. The character also teamed up with the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One #21, an important issue that would form the basis of later significant stories like "The Project Pegasus Saga" and "Squadron Supreme: Death of a Universe".
DC Comics, 1987–1990, a four-issue mini-series tryout, then 24 issues and one Annual, most written by Mike W. Barr. Original adventures, including a reunion with Doc's Mayan sweetheart/wife Monya and John Sunlight, adventures with Doc's grandson "Chip" Savage, and back story on Doc's parents and youth. Included a four-issue crossover with DC's current run of The Shadow.
Millennium Publications published several mini-series and one-shots, including Doc Savage: The Monarch of Armageddon, a four-part limited series, from 1991 to 1992. Written by Mark Ellis and penciled by Darryl Banks, the treatment "comes closest to the original, capturing all the action, humanity, and humor of the original novels" Other miniseries were Doom Dynasty and Devil's Thoughts, and one-shots Pat Savage: Woman of Bronze and Manual of Bronze.
Dark Horse Comics, 1995, two mini-series: a two-issue mini-series The Shadow and Doc Savage and four-issue Doc Savage: Curse of the Fire God.
DC announced in 2009 that it would publish a Doc Savage crossover with Batman, written by Brian Azzarello with art by Phil Noto and a cover by J. G. Jones. Other characters involved will be Black Canary; The Avenger, Rima the Jungle Girl, the Spirit, and Doc Savage's the Fabulous Five. It is a prologue to First Wave, a six-issue limited series with art by Rags Morales. The First Wave line was then expanded to include a Doc Savage ongoing series written by Paul Malmont, with art by Howard Porter. Malmont only wrote the first four issues, with other authors writing the rest of the series.
Film
In 1975, producer and director George Pal produced the movie
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, starring Ron Ely as Doc. The movie was a critical and commercial failure. Several articles and a later interview with Pal suggest the movie's failure had much to do with its loss of funding during filming, when the studio changed heads and Pal was forced to cut costs. Nevertheless, Pal, as producer, is generally blamed for using the "high camp" approach in the style of the Batman television series. An original soundtrack for the film was also commissioned but when Pal lost his funding, he resorted to a patriotic march from John Philip Sousa, which was in the public domain.
Doc On The Radio
Two Doc Savage radio series were broadcast during the pulp era. The first, in 1934, was a 15-minute serial which ran for 26 episodes. The 1943 series was based not on the pulps, but on the comic book version of the character. No audio exists from either series, although some scripts survived. In 1985, National Public Radio aired The Adventures of Doc Savage, as 13 half-hour episodes, based on the pulps and adapted by Will Murray and Roger Rittner.
| Air date | Title |
| 02/10/1934 | The Red Death |
| 05/12/1934 | The Green Ghost |
| 02/17/1934 | The Golden Legacy |
| 05/19/1934 | The Box of Fear |
| 02/24/1934 | The Red Lake Quest |
| 05/26/1934 | The Phantom Terror |
| 03/03/1934 | The Sniper in The Sky |
| 06/02/1934 | Mantrap Mesa |
| 03/10/1934 | The Evil Extortionists |
| 06/09/1934 | Fast Workers |
| 03/17/1934 | Black-Light Magic |
| 06/16/1934 | Needle in a Chinese Haystack |
| 03/24/1934 | Radium Scramble |
| 06/23/1934 | Monk Called it Justice |
| 03/31/1934 | DeaTh Had Blue Hands |
| 06/30/1934 | The White Haired Devil |
| 04/07/1934 | The Sinister Sleep |
| 07/07/1934 | The Oilfield Ogres |
| 04/14/1934 | The Southern Star Mystery |
| 07/14/1934 | The Fainting Lady |
| 04/21/1934 | The Impossible Bullet |
| 07/21/1934 | Poison Cargo |
| 04/28/1934 | The Too-talkative Parrot |
| 07/28/1934 | Find Curley Morgan |
| 05/05/1934 | The Blue Angel |
| 08/04/1934 | The Growing Wizard |
| Date | Title |
| January 6, 1943 | Doc Savage |
| April 7, 1943 | Subway to Hell |
| January 13, 1943 | Return from Death |
| April 14, 1943 | Monster of The Sea |
| January 20, 1943 | Note of Death |
| April 21, 1943 | The Voice That Cried 'Kill!' |
| January 27, 1943 | Murder Charm |
| April 28, 1943 | Cult of Satan |
| February 3, 1943 | Death Stalks The Morgue |
| May 5, 1943 | When Dead Men Walk |
| February 10, 1943 | I'll Dance on Your Grave |
| May 12, 1943 | The Screeching Ghost |
| February 17, 1943 | Murder is a Business |
| May 19, 1943 | Ransom or Death |
| February 24, 1943 | Living Evil |
| May 26, 1943 | Murder Man |
| March 3, 1943 | Journey into Oblivion |
| June 2, 1943 | Miracle Maniac |
| March 10, 1943 | Hour of Murder |
| June 9, 1943 | Skull Man |
| March 17, 1943 | Pharaoh's Wisdom |
| June 17, 1943 | The Voice That Cried 'Kill!'(repeat) |
| March 24, 1943 | Society Amazonia |
| June 24, 1943 | Living Evil(repeat) |
| March 31, 1943 | Insect Menace |
| July 1, 1943 | Murder is a Business (repeat) |
| Date | Title |
| 09/30/1985 | Kidnapped |
| 10/07/1985 | The Hanging Man |
| 10/14/1985 | The Disappointing Parcel |
| 10/21/1985 | The Island of Death |
| 10/28/1985 | Terror Underground |
| 11/04/1985 | The Mysterious Weeds |
| 11/11/1985 | The Crawling Terror |
| 11/18/1985 | The Black Stick |
| 11/25/1985 | Three Black Sticks |
| 12/02/1985 | Flight Into Fear |
| 12/09/1985 | Pagoda of The Hands |
| 12/16/1985 | The Accursed City |
| 12/23/1985 | The Deadly Treasure |
Likewise, the masked comic adventure
The Clock, from 1936, isn’t particularly memorable.
Those that are interested in the intricacies can lose a few hours in
the Superhero fiction article at wikipedia.
As for the Man of Bronze, he’s one of these primordial characters to have moved past the
Golden Age of pulps and comics.
Originally appearing in a
Doc Savage Magazine run that started in 1933, the pulp literature character was introduced as a “peak” human. Trained from birth by a team of scientists and experts in every field, Clark Savage Jr.’s intense daily exercise regime and supreme intellect keep him at the top of his game as the perfect adventurer.
Along with five other rough and tumbling experts that he met during World War I,
Doc Savage travels the world, using his ingenious inventions to solve mysteries, right wrongdoings, and aid the oppressed and needy.
Doc was created by Lester Dent, who under various pen names (such as Kenneth Robeson) wrote some 181 Savage stories.
He’s seen many homages, including notable ones in Warren Ellis’ Planetary and the Alan Moore’s Tom Strong, and is still in print himself, having been included directly in DC’s 2010
First Wave title.
Also published by DC this year is
Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, which actually collects a Marvel comic that ran in the early 70s.
This
Bronze Age title, in turn, reworked some of
Lester Dent‘s earliest stories from 1933 and 1934.
There are four stories here,
The Man Of Bronze, Death in Silver,
The Monsters, and
Brand of the Werewolf, each taking place across two issues.
i still hate the gay blue vest.Marvel’s Doc Savage was less man of bronze and man of narsassism.The comic was far from perfect.They first put in the 1970's.Bad move.
The first couple stories are adapted by
Roy Thomas and
Steve Englehart with
Gardner Fox and
Tony Isabellahandling the latter two.
Ross Andru does the majority of the pencils along with help by
Richard Buckler.
There’s a good smattering of talent here and don’t let the mix scare you. This book is very consistent, with no jarring differences between writers and artists, delivering a fun adventure story in a mix of the original pulps and Kirby influenced Marvel house style.
When I first sat down with the book, the comic historian in me was very excited by the Savage name. The
Jim Steranko cover didn’t hurt either.
Pulp comics: Marvel’s Doc Savage
In the 1970s,
Marvel Comics got the rights to do a
Doc Savage comic. They actually wound up doing two different series.
From 1972-74, Marvel did a color comic. In two issues each, they adapted one of the Doc Savage stories. The comic lasted for eight issues, so four stories were adapted: “The Man of Bronze” (#1 & 2), “Death in Silver” (#3 & 4), “The Monsters” (#5 & 6), and “Brand of the Werewolf ” (#7 & 8). Roy Thomas(first issue only), Steve Englehart and later Gardner Fox andTony Isabella did the writing, with art by Ross Andru and others. Jim Steranko did the covers for the second and third issues. They gave Doc the Bama haircut, and had him run around in white tight pants and boots and a little skimpy blue vest. No shirt.Stupid.
Apparently, due to poor sales, they canceled the title. When the
George Pal movie came out in 1975, they did a “Giant-Size Doc Savage” #1 that reprinted the first two issues as a movie tie-in. They
did make some changes in the artwork to more match the black & white magazine, giving him the same open shirt look as the magazine and no vest.
They would also have Doc team up with two of their characters in their then-current team-up titles. First, Spider-Man in “Giant-Size Spider-Man” #3 (January 1975) and then the Thing in “Marvel Two-in-One” #21 (November 1976). Due to Doc being set in the 1930s and Spider-Man and the Thing being in modern times, they had to come up with some kind of menace that the characters could fight while separated by decades. Spider-Man didn’t get to met Doc Savage, but the Thing was able to.
In 1975-77, Marvel did a black & white magazine, under their “Curtis Magazine” imprint. This was done after the George Pal movie came out earlier in 1975. Unlike the color comics, these had original Doc savage stories written by Doug Monech with artwork by Tony DeZuniga and others. Except for the first cover, a movie-in tie by Roger Kastel, the rest were by Ken Barr.
Doc again has the Bama helmet hair, but they at least give him a shirt unlike the color comics, though it was worn unbuttoned. Most people feel the original stories in this series are among the best Doc Savage comics, if not the best. While I agree they are among the best, I do prefer some that come later.
When
DC Comics had the Doc Savage rights recently for their First Wave run, they reprinted the two Marvel series. They did the eight-issue color comic series in one trade paperback. But obviously couldn’t reprint the two team-up issues. Then they reprinted the black and white series as part of their “Showcase Presents” series. However, this didn’t include the handful of text pieces that also ran in a few of the issues.
Now that Dynamite has the rights, they plan a hardback archive reprint of the black and white series. No idea if they will include the text pieces that DC left out. It’s also unclear what other Doc comics they might reprint.
I have to admit that the first few pages were kind of jarring. Instead of a nice historical introduction, there’s a bit introducing the cast. While not badly written, sometimes such pages are a hint that the book you’re opening is overburdened by continuity.
Also, the character design for Savage is really weird – perhaps accurate to the magazines, though I’ve seen some much more human looking versions – but he looks like a cross between a manhunter robot and a genie addicted to tanning beds.
Luckily, Savage grew on me, and I needn’t have worried about the continuity. While the story seems to jump right into the action (with some very Bronze Age Marvel villain designs) it works perfectly like that. I think the book actually opens with an adaptation of the very first pulp story, so it must have worked like this right from the start.
You needn’t know much more about the characters than Doc’s mastery of just about everything and kind nature, Monk’s gorilla type frame holding the brain of a genius chemist, or Ham’s role as a well dressed lawyer with a sword hidden in his cane. They’re adventurers and you get to know them by watching what they do best – adventure!
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I expected it to be interesting and fun on a level similar to many older comics, getting by mainly on a sense of fauxstalgia (nostalgia for events and styles that were popular before you were born).
But while many of the plots are similar to stories I’ve read before in Golden and even Modern Age comics (probably because
these Savage
stories were influential
), I was also kept constantly on my toes.
As an example,
Batman aficionados might want to read
The Monsters, which was originally published in April 1943 and was probably quite influential on the 1940 Batman storyline about Hugo Strange. I’d have a hard time believing that
Kane and
Finger were not familiar with Lester’s work, not that there’s any stealing – just some fun parallels.
Creators like
Gardner Fox, who were around for both stories, must have been particularly excited about this project. In fact, I’m willing to bet most of the artists and writers treated this one as revisiting a childhood treasure.
Without having read the original shorts, I feel like the adaptation is faithful. Elements like slightly offensive ethnic stereotypes are still there, but alongside the good factors as well – strong female characters, for example. The dialogue is modern enough while still retaining a very pulp feel.
There’s a no-apologies craziness about the whole series of events, rather explaining afterwords than ruining a surprise with unneeded build up.
Characters constantly display new skills, which some how makes sense while remaining unexpected. We know these guys are badass and part of the fun is them topping past feats.
Just as surprising and perhaps a little confusing, is the use of gadgetry. It seems (and the art style might be a factor here) to be much too advanced for the 30s, when these stories supposedly take place. But interestingly enough, many of the inventions (like television, advanced submarines and helicopters, rapid-fire firearms) were featured in the original stories.
Never underestimate a speculative fiction author.
Ross Andru illustrated this book right at what many would consider the height of his career.
He had just come to Marvel from DC Comics and was working the newly launched Defenders and Marvel Team-Up, soon working as the regular artist on Amazing Spider-Man. Only a few years later he would co-create The Punisher.
His work here isn’t quite as memorable as some of those other issues (and the design for Doc Savage isn’t nearly as aesthetically sleek as The Punisher and his overly broad build can see quite awkward at times) but it’s still great for the book.
It’s worth talking a little bit more about how terribly ridiculous Doc looks here. Little blue vest?
And in the last issue, a little blue
furry vest? And that spray tan and widow’s peak?
Not at all the Doc I always thought of from the covers of pulp paperbacks, but by the end I couldn’t help loving it, at least with a healthy dose of hipster-like irony.
I’ll admit that Andru isn’t my favorite artist of this era, as I always felt his work was stuck partway between the angular intensity of
Jack Kirby and the sleek musculature of artists like
Neal Adams.
There were some times where I was reminded of Kirby more directly, mostly with the Fabulous Five that assist Savage – for some reason always conjuring memories of the
Newsboy Legion and other early Kirby creations. Especially the broad face and meaty hands of Monk.
Andru was an admirable craftsman, though, and his compositions flow with the action, keeping the story moving at a thrilling pace.
While Savage himself feels a bit too
smooth at times, seeming less than human, many of the other characters have striking features.
It’s especially obvious when Andru plays with the light in a scene, creating dramatic and sometimes terrible effects.
I think his best work is in
The Monster Men and the first issue of
Brand of The Werewolf, where the more monstrous adversaries allow him to really let loose.
I’m not sure why the reigns had been handed to
Rich Buckler for the last issue.
Perhaps because Andru was working on three issues of Spider-Man, two of X-Men, and a Marvel-Team up from October to December of 1973, so he may have just been busy.
In any case, Buckler, along with
Tom Palmer, who inked most of the work, and
Jack Abel do a fine job with the last issue. I didn’t even notice the switchover on the first readthrough, since I was ambling along with my full attention on the action. The art here has perhaps a little bit more hatching instead of smooth lines, but it’s not particularly evident.
Altogether,
Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze was a big bundle of fun.
I didn’t have high hopes, since you never know what to expect with a book that’s been uncollected for so long.
I wish there was a bit of a historical introduction in this volume, but I understand the more direct presentation since it’s a set of stories that can appeal to all ages of readers hoping for some quick hopping adventure.
Forty years past his creation, then
another forty past the adaptation, Doc Savage still stands strong.
The Man of Bronze can brave danger with the best of em.
Verdict:
4 out of 5.
Both an excellent introduction to a classic pulp hero
and some fun comics that stand up to the test of time,
Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze comes highly recommended.
Pick it up for the kid inside, the kid you know, or the culture historian pretending to be past childish things.
Essential Continuity:
Doc Savage doesn’t have a very large publishing history in comics, and his origin isn’t really as important as his adventures.
I’m actually not sure if the origin story is ever told as more than a couple blurbs or mentions. But this is a good place to start.
Read first:
For the comics reader, you can start here. We also place it very early on our DC timeline. It’s in the 30s, right after
Showcase Presents Enemy Ace, taking place in WWI.
But if you are interested in the original pulps many of them (along with a lot of scholarly publication) are
available on Amazon.
I’m not an expert on all the various print runs, comics being more my thing, but it seems a lot has been collected past the original magazine format.
Read next:
As far as trades go, Doc next shows up in
Doc Savage: The Silver Pyramid, which collects the late 80s DC miniseries.
There are also some contemporary trades (probably why DC published this one),
Doc Savage: The Lord of Lightning and
First Wave.
I haven’t read any of these others yet, so I can’t guarantee they will be as high quality as this book.
I personally reccomend
Planetary and
Tom Strong, as mentioned before in this review. Both have some examination of this kind of science adventurer, in addition to being good reads.
This book also got me in the mood for some classic Kirby art action, and I might jump into the recent
Newsboy Legion hardcover if I can find the time.
Finally, if you’re following along on our
review journey through the
DC Universe Recommended Reading Order, our next book is
Sandman Mystery Theatre Vol. 1: The Tarantula.
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Fauxstalgia, huh? I’ve never heard that one before…but I guess now I’d call myself a fauxstalgic kinda guy! lol.
Also, I didn’t realize Gardner Fox had worked on this, or even that he’d done much work for Marvel. I love the guy, so I’ll have to read this. Actually, I got it from the library a while back but didn’t have time to read it so I returned it…so I guess I’ll just have to check it out again!
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Fox worked on issues 5-7, I think. Not that you’d really notice, honestly. All the writing seems about the same, though those two stories are over the top in different ways. The first two are kind of oddly costumed crime syndicate stories, and the second two have more supernatural foes.
Ross Andru is very talented, and I enjoyed his work here, he just suffers from chronological proximity to some of my other favorite artists, like Kirby’s New Gods stuff. His style just never seemed to differentiate itself enough to me.
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I haven’t read any spider-man he’s worked on in sometime, but I’m sure I’ll peak at those Essentials eventually. I do think that his style would be a strength there.
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